Removed groups from things

[aounhaider1]

Groups are removed from things as described here #1014.

Signed-off-by: Aoun Bukhari [email protected]

[maggu2810]

I am using the Paper UI most of time to configure and control my things.
I also group my devices using the group feature of the Paper UI.
As a user point of view I don't care if this is a feature of the Paper UI only or a general concept.
I am fine to use this as a grouping for the Paper UI only.

So I do not get the point why we should remove this function from the Paper UI as long as there is no other grouping mechanism added.

[maggu2810]

As a developer point of view, I get the point that this will lead to a miss-understanding of the current internals.

[kaikreuzer]

Note that this issue is a preparation for #1013.
The /setup resource together with the ThingSetupManager class is something that we imho need to get rid off - it tightly couples Things/Links/Items, which definitely must not be the default behavior.

As a user point of view I don't care if this is a feature of the Paper UI only or a general concept.

The Paper UI should only support the concepts of ESH. If the solution that you as a user are using has additional features, it is up to the solution to deal with them.

For organizing UI content, ESH has the concept of sitemaps (for which a more modern version is under discussion. The "control" section of the Paper UI should make use of this instead of inventing its own mechanisms (by introducing custom tags for items).

We can think of a new optional service that allows auto-creation of items for things. We can also think about having introducing a "physical location" for Things (maybe in line with #582), but the current item groups are functional locations and thus it is conceptionally something different that should not be mixed.

[kaikreuzer]

@maggu2810 Are you ok with merging this? It will increase the pressure to work on #1083 and others :-)

[maggu2810]

It will increase the pressure to work on #1083 and others

Only if some of the web guys does need this and will implement the UI part.

Are you ok with merging this?

Progress can not be stopped.

[kaikreuzer]

Thanks for rebasing!

[maggu2810]

Just to be sure:
Now I cannot use the Paper UI to add things and to control them by the control view anymore.
I can add e.g. discovered things, but in the control view I see only items of groups.
Is it correct that the only way to get items visible in the Paper UI control view using ESH bundles only is to send the REST calls myself?
Or am I missing something?

[maggu2810]

So, I don't talk about location groups or something similar.

IMHO the Paper UI miss a item configuration page where you can add new items (e.g. group items), edit the group membership of items etc.

[maggu2810]

What about the app.js entry:

    }).when('/configuration/groups', {
        templateUrl : 'partials/configuration.html',
        controller : 'ConfigurationPageController',
        title : 'Configuration'

I think this could be removed, too.

[aounhaider1]

Yes, this route should also be removed.

[kaikreuzer]

Yes, this route should also be removed.

So will you remove it, @aounhaider1?

[maggu2810]

I can remove it, too. It's just about removing four lines.
But I wait for a reply on the formatter question / investigation of myself before adding new PRs about the Paper UI.

[kaikreuzer]

Is it correct that the only way to get items visible in the Paper UI control view using ESH bundles only is to send the REST calls myself?

Correct for this temporary situation, indeed.
I would hope that we soon see #1083 being implemented, which would be the replacement for the "groups" here.

Together with #1039, I would think that we can have a "simple mode", which allows you to show Things in the control ui in some default (and not individually adjustable) way (e.g. only using labels as defined on the channels, etc.).

[kaikreuzer]

Now I cannot use the Paper UI to add things and to control them by the control view anymore.

This is now addressed by #1246 - so although you cannot group them (this will be possible again with #1083), you can again use the control ui to quickly test your Things.

[maggu2810]

Haven't tested it, but this sounds great 😉

[kaikreuzer]

It is ;-)